Here at Tactical Rifleman we want to give experts and amateurs alike different points of views regarding shooting, moving, weapons, and tactics from different members of our elite military units. This week we have Jason Phalin, former Navy SEAL and founder of Arion Risk LLC, here to show you a personal version of the various body armor setups Navy SEALs utilize to perform one of a variety of mission sets. In this video, Jason walks us through his body armor setup utilized in fast assault, direct action missions and low-visibility operations where a bulky setup would hinder performance and reaction times. Navy SEALs conduct highly specialized missions all over the world and have various body armor setups to facilitate the mission. Setup is normally based on the requirements of 80% of the mission and is very operator specific. Land Warfare enduring operations require more space and surface area to enable operators to carry more equipment. Maritime operations setups, for instance, have to accommodate flotation in case of unwanted water entries as well as required safety items if inserting by helicopter over water.

I know everyone has their own opinions on placement and access of certain tactical items, but I am here to tell you, every operator is given the flexibility to organize their own kit. Certain items are an “equipment common to all” which every man must carry as standard load out, but all operators will place the gear necessary to complete their job in the platoon in whatever order they wish. By the time the platoon is ready to deploy, all members of the platoon pretty much know each others kit back and forth.

Every SEAL will have different setups but generally, the setup shown in the video is pretty close to what you would see in a typical SEAL mission. At the end of the day as long as you get the target secure while carrying your part of the loadout and look cool while doing it, that’s MISSION SUCCESS.